Alan Ritchson might be more like his character on Reacher than we realized.
The 41-year-old actor recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, when he opened up about a tense situation he handled very much like his character would have.
Jack Reacher, or just “Reacher,” is the titular character from Lee Child‘s action book series about a 6-foot-5 military police veteran who wanders around the United States righting wrongs in whatever way he sees fit—usually employing at least some level of violence.
But while Ritchson is playing a role for the Prime Video series, he might have more in common with Reacher than we thought.
While talking to Fallon on Friday, Feb. 16, the actor opened up about a situation he and his wife, Catherine Ritchson, found themselves in. During a recent date, Catherine noticed someone was breaking into a car down the street.
“So this guy pulls out of this car, and he’s got like four duffle bags of stuff, and he starts running towards us, and I was like, ‘That dude definitely just broke into that car,” he recounted. “And we lock eyes as he passes, and I was like, ‘Oh, no.'”
Ritchson remembered thinking, “I’m going to have to do something about this,” even though his wife begged him not to, noting that they were supposed to be on a romantic date.
“I go, Please? I have to do this,'” he continued, adding that his wife still tried to prevent him from taking the situation into his own hands—but just like Reacher, he did it anyway.
“So I took off, and I start chasing this dude,” Ritchson continued, saying he was determined “to hunt this dude down.” But he eventually turned a corner, and the man was nowhere in sight.
Luckily, someone “way down the block” yelled out to Ritchson, letting him know the man was hiding under a nearby van.
Despite the burglar trying to get away, Ritchson told him, “Just give it up, dude.”
“He leaves the duffle bag, and I was like, ‘I’m not done yet'”—a line that sounds like it could be in the Reacher script.
Eventually, he pushed the guy into a building, which he claimed he did very “lovingly.”
“I love all people,” he joked. “I’m a pacifist at heart.”
Ritchson then said he “gently” threw the man “like a shot put, like a discus,” into the building, “And he just slides down like a cartoon character.”
Confirming that this story was something in real-life and not in an episode of Reacher, Fallon added, “Alan takes care of business!”
So the actor really is Jack Reacher.